The Summer I Half Dated a Rock Star

How much longer are we going to lookfor Arby’s? I ask Jakob Dylan — son of Boband front man of The Wallflowers — as we ridea spotted Palomino down Cesar ChavezStreet in the east end of downtown Austin.An hour ago Jakob said, It just makes sense,riding a horse in Texas. And it does, maybe,but Jakob doesn’t have much of a chestto hold onto and today I wore my cut-offLevi 501s, which despite claims of Levi& Strauss in early 1914 advertisements,are not well-suited for bareback riding.My thighs chafe. We pass Starbucks.Want to stop for an iced soy latte? I ask, buthe just keeps riding. I have come to knowtwo things about Jakob. One: Do not askabout his father. Two: When the man wantsa beef-n-cheddar with a Jamocha shakeyou might as well ride along or get offthe damn horse. No stopping this cowboy.I’m not a cowboy, he tells me and I say,Please, Jake, stop reading my thoughts.Three: Jakob is a sometimes clairvoyantwhen he is hungry. Three weeks agowe met in a Baton Rouge gay bar. Anythinggood to eat in this place? he asked. Hellif I know, I said, But you are one cute cookieWhat can I say? I was nervous. It was Jakobfreaking Dylan, who wrote the 1997 hit song|“One Headlight,” which Rolling Stone laternamed #57 of the 100 best pop songs of alltime. One thing led to another and Jakob askedme to tour the Southwest. Ride off into the sunsetwith me, I thought he said. But I was wrongabout everything. In Arizona two weeks from now,I will buy what passes for a Navajo blanket, someDiet Pepsi, and a used copy of Anna Karenina.At a truck stop I will say, Jake, I journey alonefrom here, and he’ll know I mean it as I walk downthe road, throwing my head back, laughing.

Soliloquy

There are a thousand ways to say it is not the heat.In Maryland, the mosquitoes, in Missouri,the humidity. In Montana, the heat is always elsewhere.But what about Memphis? That July we matriculatedto the Elvis Presley School of Hardknocks, enrolledin Persistence 101 at the Motel 6 on Interstate 40.These are the thousand natural shocks the flesh inherits.Saturday morning heartache, that July I could not bring myselfto leave the boy with the worst tattoo: a forearm rabbit, belovedJolene in memoriam (she died licking bleach off the bathroom floor).Watching television, its endless loop of Law & Order,I knew the littlest things are capable of change. Like Mother,who lost all that weight in 1993 to star in a cable access Subwaycommercial. I have never been more proud of her, lunch every daya six-inch chicken breast on wheat no cheese no mayo, extralarge Diet Coke. I will not quote Brokeback Mountain and I will not lieabout Memphis and I did not want to quit you. That was my Julyof bisexual boys, hunka hunka burning preacher atop the crustybedspread — Both dick and pussy, you said, that is the quest, son.That July, there were a thousand ways the bug zapperjust outside the window lulled us to sleep (no chance to dream):one, a mosquito flies into the light; two, the bedspread imprintsa chorus of our flesh (grunt, sweat, another mosquito caughtin the zapper); three, Jolene glistens as you snore; four et ultra,I am watching another episode of Law & Order, forever.

D. Gilson is the author of I Will Say This Exactly One Time: Essays (Sibling Rivalry, 2015); Crush (Punctum Books, 2014), with Will Stockton; Brit Lit (Sibling Rivalry, 2013); and Catch & Release (2012), winner of the Robin Becker Prize. He is a PhD candidate in American literature & cultural studies at The George Washington University, and his work has appeared in PANK, The Indiana Review, The Rumpus, and as a notable essay in Best American Essays.